Page 8 of Friendship and Forgiveness (Mr. Underwood’s Elizabeth & Darcy Stories #7)

Darcy’s hand cramped as he resolutely focused on the fine scratchings of his pen on paper. The sound of a pen scraping across paper had always been one that he found pleasant and relaxing.

“Oh how even your lines!”

Though he did not show it on his face, Darcy winced at the voice at his side.

No reply was ventured to Miss Bingley.

He’d had half a night of peace earlier, when she’d been ensconced in conversation with Elizabeth and Miss Bennet. Miss Bennet had recovered sufficiently to be piled under blankets and placed by the fire. The room was rather too warm from how high Bingley had piled the fire, and Darcy wondered if the recovering invalid was actually able to enjoy that much heat, or if she also sweated in it.

Bingley now talked eagerly to Miss Bennet while Elizabeth read a book, one leg tucked under herself — Darcy had developed a sixth sense that always informed him of exactly where Elizabeth was, what she was doing, and how attractive she appeared while she did it.

She united intelligence, cleverness, womanly charm, a fetching liveliness, excellent eyes, excellent figure, and clear loyalty to those she cared for. Further she had a passable fortune, almost passable connections — the intimate relationship with the Bingleys offsetting her unfortunate uncle in trade — and an acceptable, if only barely, family.

Day by day Darcy knew himself to be in more danger from her.

Bored and without the welcome distraction of conversation with her bosom friend, Miss Bingley had turned to her other favorite occupation: Annoying Darcy.

She sat next to him, leaning forward so that she could display her bosom to him, and watch him write.

Darcy had a decidedly uncomfortable feeling, almost like some small bug was crawling up and down his torso beneath his coat at how close she was. But still, she was not close enough to violate norms of politeness.

It was halfway impossible to think with her there, constantly waiting to say something else as soon as he forgot about her presence.

What had he been about to write?

Darcy scratched his jawline with the bristly feather on the back of his pen. Ah, yes.

He began writing again, and once he mentally fully engaged with the task, Miss Bingley added, “And you write so many letters! I would hate it if it fell to my task to write that many letters of business!”

“Then it is fortunate,” Darcy replied, not quite able to keep the sharpness from his tone, “that it is my fate to write them rather than yours.”

“Don't believe her,” Elizabeth said in a half absent voice without lifting her face from her book. “She is an excellent correspondent. Caroline will write reams and reams when we are apart.”

Elizabeth’s white fingers were wrapped around the cover of her book. He’d like it if she wrapped those fingers around his arms and shoulders.

With a shake Darcy once more applied himself to his letter.

“Oh! Are you writing to dear Georgiana? Do tell her that I miss her exceedingly, and look forward to that duet we promised each other when next we meet.”

“I added your salutations to her already in the previous letter I wrote to her — perhaps you ought to write your own letter to my sister?”

“Oh, of course.” Miss Bingley sat a bit further back from Darcy.

Colonel Fitzwilliam arose from where he sat playing a game of piquet with Mr. Hurst. He stuck his head between Miss Bingley and Darcy and stared intently at Darcy’s hand as he continued to write.

Both Darcy and Miss Bingley turned to stare at his singular behavior.

“Go on, go on,” he said to Darcy when it was clear that Darcy was not in fact continuing to write.

“Richard, whatever are you doing?”

“I only wished to see the marvel. From how intently Miss Bingley stares at you as you write, I was sure there must be something most singular about it.”

Miss Bingley flushed red and stood up from the chair. She made a harrumphing sound and walked over to sit next to Elizabeth.

“Go on, go on. You need not be shy. I’ll just watch,” Colonel Fitzwilliam added.

Darcy glared at his cousin.

His cousin grinned at Darcy.

With an annoyed sigh Darcy pushed the stool back, shoved the paper half off the desk, stuck the quill in the inkpot and said, “Do you want another partner at cards?”

“Oh, certainly not. Not you at any rate. Miss Bingley, would you be my partner in a round of whist?”

“No.”

“Well then, Hurst, another round of piquet, eh?”

“If you wish to hazard your money, I’ll happily take more off,” that gentleman replied. “Grab the other decanter of port would you, while you are up? We’ve drunk through this. That’s a fine fellow.”

Colonel Fitzwilliam rolled his eyes, but rejoined Hurst for the card game.

Darcy sighed, and he stared at the ceiling for a while. Stood up, stretched, walked back and forth two or three times between the little desk and the fire — aware as he did so that both Miss Bingley’s and Elizabeth’s eyes followed him.

He settled back down to continue his letter.

Hopefully Colonel Fitzwilliam had managed to give him enough peace to complete his letter.

However ten minutes after he had sat down he heard Miss Bingley’s voice saying, “Eliza, would you join me for a turn about the room?”

With a murmured response the two girls began to walk — very elegantly — about.

That dress fit Elizabeth perfectly, and the way it swayed around her legs… She had a perfectly formed bosom. With a half force of will Darcy kept himself from quite staring at her.

But her thrown back shoulders, her lovely rich hair, the locks bouncing about her cheeks, her chin, the way she smiled at Miss Bingley, and how she dimpled as she talked to her friend about whatever matter they discussed.

It was hard not to stare at that vision of loveliness.

Miss Bingley unfortunately noticed his attention on the two of them, and she called out, “Mr. Darcy, would you join us in a turn about the room, it is quite refreshing.”

“Not at all,” he replied. “I can only think of two reasons why you both have determined to walk around together, and in either case, I would be in the way.”

“Oh! Whatever do you mean? Why have we determined to walk about?” Miss Bingley and Elizabeth asked together.

“The likeliest reason is that you wished to share confidences with each other, and I would merely be in the way.”

“You would not at all be in the way,” Miss Bingley replied. “Eliza and I can always speak to each other when we wish.”

Elizabeth laughed merrily.

“Ah,” Darcy replied. “I ought to finish my letter.” But the way Elizabeth’s dimpled smile watched him was an incentive to abandon that letter and join them. Miss Bingley pouted.

“Oho! You’ll not escape so easily. My curiosity is not satisfied,” Colonel Fitzwilliam exclaimed from the card table. He slapped his hand on his leg. “And the second reason that occurred to you as to why a lovely pair of women might promenade the room?”

Darcy flushed. “Did I say I had a second reason?”

“You certainly did.”

Was his cousin trying to embarrass him?

“Yes, yes. Tell us!” Miss Bingley eagerly studied him. “Do tell us your other notion!”

“I ah…”

“Eliza, you must also encourage Darcy.”

“I’d like to know as well. My curiosity is aroused! Mr. Darcy, if you do not wish me to quite annoy myself with speculation all night, you must tell me.” That bright, dimpled smile.

Nothing for it.

Darcy sat straighter, put the feather pen back in the inkpot, and aware that his cousin was watching him, he said with a confidence he did not quite feel, “My other notion was that you both were aware that your figures appear to best advantage while walking, and if that was your intent I can admire you better from here.”

Colonel Fitzwilliam laughed and clapped his hands. “Bravo! Bravo, cousin! Better than I anticipated ever hearing from you .”

Miss Bingley giggled. “No, no! Horrible! Horrible! How could you say something so shocking.”

Elizabeth also smiled. Dimples still out. But she was not flushed with any sort of extra awareness at hearing him praise them — did she possibly think that his words had been principally aimed at Miss Bingley?

“Eliza, how shall we punish him for such a speech?” Miss Bingley asked.

“Tease him. Annoy him. Surely with an extra four weeks of acquaintance you must have learned some method by which he might be teased.”

“I swear to you, I have not. Tease calmness, self possession, and evenness of temper? It is impossible.”

Colonel Fitzwilliam choked on his port and started coughing and chortling with laughter.

Miss Bingley glared primly at Colonel Fitzwilliam.

For his part Darcy sat straighter and desperately tried to focus on his own confidence in himself to keep from blushing.

“Well then,” Miss Bingley said with asperity, “how would you tease your cousin?”

“Me? Oh, do not ask me . I have the advantage of a family relation, and having been his slightly older companion in childhood. I saw Darcy fall into one too many muddy creeks and streams to respect him.” Then he laughed again. “So very self possessed — Bingley, remember that time I had you shove him to disrupt his aim at snooker, and he still won the game?”

“Charles! You didn’t?” Miss Bingley said horrified.

Darcy could not repress his smile this time. He noticed Elizabeth studying him as he grinned, and said, “Of course I won the game. I am immune to, ah, what did you call them? Unconventional stratagems. I’d say, fraudulent tactics.”

“See, Eliza,” Miss Bingley said, “we cannot laugh at him without a cause for it. Mr. Darcy cannot be teased.”

“Mr. Darcy is not to be laughed at!” cried Elizabeth. “That is an uncommon advantage, and uncommon I hope it will continue, for it would be a great loss to me to have many such acquaintances. I dearly love a laugh.”

“Miss Bingley,” Darcy replied, “has given me more credit than I could possibly deserve. Any man, whether as wise as Socrates or Plato, or as good as Christ himself may be rendered ridiculous by a person whose first object in life is a joke.”

“I hope I am not such a person,” Elizabeth replied.

“I certainly am not,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam. “A joke is only my third or fourth object in life. However, I assure you, that I can laugh at my cousin.”

“And what is the matter which you laugh at Darcy based upon?” Elizabeth asked.

“His ridiculousness.” Colonel Fitzwilliam winked at Darcy.

“His ridiculousness!” exclaimed Elizabeth. “I have not noticed him to be ridiculous in any way.”

“You do not know him so well. And I think one must have a certain frame of mind to find him ridiculous. Few see him as I do.”

“I certainly do not!” Miss Bingley exclaimed fervently. “I can imagine no one less ridiculous than Mr. Darcy.”

Darcy sighed and rubbed at the back of his neck. He really wished that she wasn’t the one who was determined to defend him.

“And that ,” Colonel Fitzwilliam said, “shows how you , Miss Bingley, despite your lily loveliness, are wholly, and entirely ridiculous yourself.”

Miss Bingley flushed.

Elizabeth said, “But how can we tease Mr. Darcy? Colonel Fitzwilliam says he is ridiculous. But all the evidence that he has provided for such a claim is that Darcy was once a child. That is hardly a compelling argument. In fact, it is a ridiculous argument, from a ridiculous man—” Colonel Fitzwilliam laughed as Elizabeth continued, “So we are left with the conclusion: Mr. Darcy is a man wholly without flaws or defects, and he admits it himself.”

Darcy smiled.

She was teasing him.

“I did not admit it.”

“But you do not deny it?”

Darcy sighed. “I have faults enough. But I hope they are not of understanding. My temper is unyielding. I cannot forget the follies and vices of others so soon as I ought, nor their offenses against myself. I am not easily moved by every attempt to assuage my feelings. One might call my temper resentful. My good opinion once lost is lost forever.”

“That is a failing indeed,” Elizabeth replied soberly. The dimples were gone. “Implacable resentment is a failure indeed — and one worse than I imagined. But it is not of any use to me, as I cannot laugh at it.”

“Do let us have a little music,” cried Miss Bingley. “Mr. Hurst, Louisa, you will not be bothered if I interfere with the card game?”

The conversation was then broken up, and Darcy could not be unhappy about that, for he was no longer sure what the tendency of his conversation with Elizabeth meant.

But he was sure from the way that she looked at him that she was unsatisfied with his answer, and his apparent tendency to hate everybody.

The next afternoon they found themselves alone in Bingley’s bare book room. Darcy felt quite awkward. For the first minutes after she’d entered the room where he’d been sitting, he pretended to focus upon his own book. But he really was watching her backside as she frowned over the choices of possible books, glanced at him assiduously not looking back at her, shrugged, smiled, and then picked one and settled in a chair.

Some sensation, a fear of being judged by her, made Darcy speak, “I wish you to understand — I do not simply… choose to hate people.”

She put her book down, and her intense dark eyes studied Darcy’s.

“I mean to say…” he added.

“Yes?” She pulled her chair forward, closer to him. The legs scraped over the wooden floor. She was close enough that he could perceive a scent of rose water.

His stomach felt light and queasy. But in a good way.

“I fear you think that I am in some way cruel or arbitrary.”

“No.” She shook her head, curls bouncing about her cheek. “You are a man of understanding. You must confess to yourself that you sometimes can be mistaken. And you must retain some awareness that change and dynamism characterize the characters of men. What a man was once may be different from what he will be in the future. And beyond that… your speech seemed to lack that Christian charity we all should display.”

“Men rarely change.”

“That is not true! I see so much adaptation, shifts, little bits and pieces of the unexpected in the actions of individuals. You never can completely know a person! They will always surprise you.”

Darcy frowned. He would be a fool to argue with Elizabeth when he admired her, and was beginning to consider making an offer to her. He ought to find some way to simply agree with her, to maintain her good opinion of him.

What he said instead was, “That is a horrible notion. To be never able to predict or rely upon others. I could not stand to believe in such a world.”

Elizabeth studied him. Her dark eyes, often flashing with mischief, were now very deep, hard to understand, but he thought there was sympathy in them. “You cannot really love someone if you cannot accept and tolerate their faults.”

“That is not what I meant to say — you are a fool if you love someone without any care or concern for what they do. The behavior they have shown before is your best guide to what the future will be. And if you insist on loving such a person they will abuse your good will and your good nature again and again. They will smile at you. Charm you. Smile at you again. And you’ll believe them, believe that they can still be trusted. And then again. And then they will spit in your face when you finally cease to give them everything they beg of you. And then they will seek their revenge, when you did nothing to them.”

Wickham.

He still did not actually know if Wickham had taken Georgiana’s virginity. She said he had not. She certainly was not pregnant. But Darcy had no way to actually know.

He saw once more that image which had haunted his dreams for months: The dueling field, Wickham’s grinning face. The crack of a pistol. One of them dead.

He’d loved Wickham so much. They had been so close.

Elizabeth placed her hand on Darcy’s arm.

He briefly placed his hand over hers, and then with a flush both of them drew back from the other.

“You are not speaking in generalities, are you?” she said soberly.

Darcy shook his head.

“That one person proved thoroughly unworthy of your regard is not a reason to mistrust everyone.”

“I do not mistrust everyone.”

“Oh.” She waved her hand about. “That was not what I meant.”

Their eyes met.

Darcy felt a spark in his stomach, and his heart leapt.

She flushed and looked down. “You must be willing to forgive, to forgive your real friends. You are right — sometimes someone who you believed to be a friend might prove to care nothing about you. But a real friend, a true friend, such a person is worth anything.”

Darcy said nothing. He shifted in his chair, feeling uncomfortable, because he still disagreed.

Elizabeth raised her eyes, and said to him, looking closely into him, “You do not need to… it is not important that you think in this matter the way I do. You were hurt.”

“No, I wasn’t. He didn’t hurt me .”

“Then who?”

“Someone who it is my duty to care for.” Darcy gripped his fists together, pressing the left hand so tightly into a fist that the knuckles went white and hurt. “I do not know why I am speaking about this to you. I begin to hint at things that ought not to be told to anyone.”

“I understand. And I will say nothing of this conversation.”

“I thank you.”

The two of them pulled backwards from this perhaps too intense conversation. Darcy picked up his book again, and he pretended to read it once more, but his mind was full of the memory of Elizabeth’s scent and eyes.

She smelled like a garden in spring.

However, presently, Elizabeth put her book back down on the small table beside her and said, “You must surely be careful in coming to resent a person, since you are so steadfast in refusing to let go of your resentment once it is present.”

“I hope to believe that I exercise sound judgement in all such cases. I do not believe myself to ever be hasty, but a man is seldom his own best judge.”

She nodded and picked the book up again.

They did not speak again for the next ten minutes, and then they were joined by Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst, and there was not another occasion when Darcy had a chance to privately speak with Elizabeth before she left Netherfield with her sister the following day.

As Darcy stood next to Mr. Bingley and Miss Bingley as they waved at the departing carriage, Darcy’s eyes strained for every sight of her through the window. He recalled how she had touched his arm in sympathy the day before.

That way she looked at him.

The way she smelled, and the way her laugh sounded.

Jove.

He was in love with her.

“Well, that’s a pity. Beauty and brilliance, and we are abandoned by it,” Colonel Fitzwilliam said. Darcy’s jealousy rose up again as his cousin clapped his hands together twice. “Miss Bingley, I’ll require you to try twice as hard to entertain me, since there are only one third as many pretty girls.”

Miss Bingley stared at his cousin, and Colonel Fitzwilliam winked back at her.

To Darcy’s surprise Miss Bingley giggled in an authentic way that he’d never heard her laugh before. She asked him, “You are certain you will not miss my Eliza?”

“Miss Eliza? Of course I shall miss Miss Eliza. Beauty and brilliance. And her sister is an attractive creature as well. But we’ll see her in the town I am sure — Bingley, we will see them all in the town?”

“You may depend upon it. And everyone shall be at my ball. Another week or two will be ample time to put everything into preparation.”

“Well then. No great loss. I’ve already achieved my real aim, and I shall dance first with her at that ball.” Colonel Fitzwilliam turned to Darcy, and laughingly said, “I am certain that you are even more eager than me for your dance. Already promised to the lovely, and ravishing, and one day to be the queen of all our hearts, Miss Bingley.”

At this Miss Bingley looked at Darcy with that eager gaze she always showed.

Darcy bowed stiffly. “It will be a delight.”

That night Darcy found it difficult to sleep, and after pacing his room a few minutes, he went downstairs to the kitchen to acquire some meat and cheese and a bit of bread for a quick snack.

However when he reached the kitchen, he was surprised to hear the sound of a woman crying. He softly stepped around, to see if it was a servant who he might aid in some way, but then to his shock, her face half illuminated by a candle she’d set on one of the counters, was Caroline Bingley, sobbing.

Darcy startled, and with an intense sense that he was intruding, immediately withdrew. Thankfully she gave no sign of having noticed him, and he was able to retreat back to his bedroom, and return to sleep.

*****

Miss Bingley had been unable to sleep, her mind running around and around about Mr. Darcy, and thoughts and schemes to attract him, plans for her coiffage and dress — everything.

After a long while she determined that if she wished to look her best she must force her mind elsewhere, and actually fall asleep.

Fortunately, from childhood, Caroline had found that a glass of warmed milk always sent her right to sleep.

It was too late at night to politely awaken one of the servants to work the stove, but Caroline had never forgotten how to safely light and use a stove. After all, she’d had to learn during the straightened circumstances of their childhood.

As she lit the stove and poured her cup of milk and placed it on, Caroline remembered that time when Elizabeth had made fun of Lady Amelia after she revealed that she had no notion how the hot water for tea was actually prepared.

And it was sort of funny.

But Caroline had then felt ashamed of herself for knowing . If it was proper for the daughter of an earl to be so isolated from labor that she literally did not know what a stove was, then Caroline wanted to be like that too.

But ignorance could not be regained. It was like a snowflake which once it had melted, could never be reformed in precisely the same way again.

With a sudden shock of fear, Caroline wondered if Mr. Darcy would horribly judge her if he saw her heating her own milk. After all he must expect the sort of ignorance in his bride that Lady Amelia had been bred to have. This was why gentlemen like him despised connections with trade, they connected people with things that signaled poverty, and lack, and limits, and the need to work for success, while a proper aristocrat was nearly a god, with no limits except for the king and, Caroline supposed, any dukes of his acquaintance above him.

For a moment the only thing which stopped Caroline from waking up a servant to heat her milk for her was a certainty that Elizabeth would judge her harshly if she woke a servant for something as pointless as warming milk for her when she could do it perfectly well herself.

And Caroline suddenly saw in her mind’s eye that thing that had been there constantly, and that she’d been trying as hard as she possibly could to not see: The way that Mr. Darcy looked at Elizabeth.

And she started sobbing.

It was as though she knew Darcy did not care for her, and that he never would.

Caroline wrapped her arms around her knees, forgetting about the boiling milk and just cried and cried.

After a while she thought she heard a noise, and a minute later, she shook herself up.

She couldn’t see into the darkness around, but she grabbed her candle and peered out into the door.

No one there.

Maybe there had been a servant, and maybe they had seen her.

A deep shame flushed through Caroline. She extinguished the fuel in the stove, and stirred the steaming milk around and around.

It was too hot to drink.

Caroline stared at the flickering flame of the candle, and then she growled angrily.

She was not beaten.

No one, not even Eliza, would take Mr. Darcy from her. Caroline squared her shoulders and lifted her head high.

Caroline loved Elizabeth, but she’d always known that she was a bit more diligent as a student, a bit better liked by Mrs. Castle and the other masters at the school, and just a bit more capable of making friends with the better sort of connections than Eliza. If their life was a novel, she would be the protagonist, while Elizabeth would be the dearest friend of the protagonist.

It was impossible that in the end, while not even trying , Elizabeth would gain the prize that Caroline wanted more than any other she’d ever sought.

Besides, Elizabeth wanted to help her, and she trusted her dearest friend. Elizabeth would not try to steal Mr. Darcy. Because of Elizabeth she was going to be able to dance with Mr. Darcy for the first dance of the Netherfield ball.

That must be a sign.

He would stand across from her, holding her hands. And this time, at last he would really see her, really see how much she loved him, and he would finally realize that he loved her.

She would however need to send to London for a new dress. But her size had not changed at all, and if she offered enough money, her modiste would come down for a day for a final fitting.

Caroline would not despair.

One day soon, she would be Mrs. Fitzwilliam Darcy.